Family Fun Day

Today was Be a Tourist in Your Own Town in Lansing. Sarah (Mittino) and I crafted a plan a couple of weeks ago to make today "family fun day" for our families. I was super excited to spend the day out and about with you, however, your father was none too thrilled as this was time that he couldn't spend working on the house. We talked it over and I eventually "won" the argument, however, that doesn't mean your father was excited about going! The way Be a Tourist works is you buy a "passport" for $1 and that grants you admission to any number of places around town. A lot of the places that participate are places that we don't necessarily have any interest in going to and others are places that we go often or are always free so we decided to maximize our time and go to a few of the places that we would normally have to pay admission at. We started the day bright and early (6:30 when you woke up!) and met the Mittino's for breakfast at Silver Spoon Cafe at 9:00. After breakfast it was off to Impressions Five science museum. Your father and I went there as kids and neither of us had been for quite a while so we were excited for that (even your father was excited!). We were there around 10:00am when they opened and started exploring. My favorite part was the First Impressions Room which is designed for younger kids. They have a play structure with a slide, a house with kitchen and all sorts of toys, water tables with toys, puzzles and really anything else young kids want to play with. It is a great room because all of the toys / activities provide some sort of stimulation and allow for educational play. The best part of the room is that there aren't bigger kids in there to push around the little ones. When we were in the main part of the museum you were enjoying a lot of the other exhibits such as the heart that you can walk through and some of the sound and mirror things but there were just too many people and you were nervous walking around on your own. We left the museum around noon and as we were leaving there was a LONG line of people heading in so we were glad we had gone there first. From there we headed up to Old Town and walked around for a while. Your father was starting to get grumpy and you and Tony were napping so we just enjoyed our walk before heading to Potter Park Zoo.
Playing with daddy in the house at Impressions Five

The zoo is another place that I haven't gone since I was young and I really enjoyed going there with you. We went to the zoo in Florida which was fun but I enjoyed this a lot more, I think in part because we are familiar with the layout and really, Potter Park is a good zoo. Your favorite exhibit was the Golden Lion Tamarin. The shriek you let out when you saw them was priceless! You also enjoyed the big cats, saying your version of kitty when you saw them - something like "itty"

Leading the way at Potter Park Zoo